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As moving as it is riveting, Patricia Engel’s
Infinite Country is a one-of-a-kind telling of the timeless story of migration. The era-leaping novel combines international history the Colombian Conflict, the introduction of the DREAM Act with the personal stories of a family whose bond cannot be broken by geography. A late-night dash for freedom in the opening chapter is just the start of a border-crossing relay race that spans the Western Hemisphere. Engel’s pacing is breathless she covers three generations in under 200 pages but just as frequently gives way to heart- and time-stopping moments.
Infinite Country is poised to be one of the most stirring page-turners of the year.
Gabino Iglesias
We all know 2020 was a horrific year, but it was also a superb year for horror. As the world struggled through the pandemic, readers stuck at home turned to horror narratives as much – if not more so – than they regularly do because fictional horrors offer us an escape from real ones. As always, the genre delivered.
The greatness started early with Andy Davidson’s
The Boatman’s Daughter, a book that seemed to be pulled from the muddy rivers of the South and carried all the spookiness and grit hidden in every bayou in this country. With great characterization and sharp prose, this early release was making lists at the end of the year, and deservingly so. Luckily for readers, that was just the beginning.
If you want to truly embrace the terror and beauty of winter, a Russian-inflected modern folktale should do the trick. In Katherine Arden’s
The Bear and the Nightingale we meet Vasilisa Petrovna, who has no wish to marry. She grew up on tales of Frost Demons, rusalka, all that is wild and magical in the dark and frozen forests including the great Bear, who is gathering his power in the darkness beyond the village. Enter the stepmother, who agrees with the village priests that following the ancient ways will lead to Hell; she wants to see her new daughters packed off to convents, where devotion to God will cure them, or wed, where lives as wives will keep them too busy to bother with uncanny spirits and old lore. When a blizzard freezes the village, everyone Vasya loves faces certain starvation. The young woman will have to defy her stepmother and the priest to ally with every “demonic” force who’s willing to help her before the Bear destroys them all.
ECC Writers Center Reading Series announce spring lineup
Updated 2/13/2021 1:23 AM
The Writers Center at Elgin Community College will host three authors for the Spring 2021 Reading Series. Due to ongoing social distancing practices, the events will take place virtually. All readings begin at 7:30 p.m.
On Thursday, Feb. 18, the spring Reading Series kicks off with Clifford Thompson, author of What It Is: Race, Family, and One Thinking Black Man s Blues, one of Time magazine s most anticipated books of the 2019 season. His essays and writings on books, film, jazz, and American identity have appeared in The Best American Essays 2018, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Village Voice. He is the author of a novel, Signifying Nothing, and a 2015 memoir, Twin of Blackness. Thompson teaches creative nonfiction writing at the Bennington Writing Seminars, New York University, and Sarah Lawrence College.
In my mind, last winter never happened. I have no memory of snow, of the hard and frozen ground, of salt sprinkled on the front steps, or of long stalagmites of ice hanging from the gutters. However hard I try, I remember nothing. I am like a woman whose limb suddenly becomes paralyzed, who tries over and over to lift it, and is disappointed, again and again, when it does not move. The only thing I remember is a candle.
My son, Mendel Goldbloom, a 24-year-old Marine, was killed in 2019, on Simchas Torah. For the entire year after his death, I was struck by the way his yahrtzeit candle flickered and changed color after midnight. I took videos as the color changed from a calm pale yellow to an alarming dancing red. I talked about it with my children and my shrink. It felt as if Mendel was trying to contact me, because it happened in my workspace, after everyone else was asleep, when only I was up and writing. I spoke to the candle as if Mendel was standing in front of me. And though I